Last week in the Philippines, tourism ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) agreed to adopt a new ASEAN Tourism Strategic Plan 2016-2025, central to which is the marketing of ASEAN as a single destination.

In particular, duty free and travel retailers will stand to gain from the 50^th anniversary of ASEAN in 2017 thanks to a major campaign ‘Visit ASEAN@50’ that is jointly promoting and showcasing ASEAN as one big tourism destination.

Preliminary figure show that member states received 98m international visitors last year. This was up +7.3% on 2014 with intra-ASEAN travel accounting for the major share of tourists, making up 42% of total international arrivals in 2015.

The target audience of Visit ASEAN@50 will be the main source markets: Intra-ASEAN, Asia and Pacific, Middle East and Europe.

ASEAN, a grouping of 10 Southeast Asian countries, aims to accelerate economic growth and cooperation. The members are: founding states Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand plus Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

MULTI-COMMITTEE IMPLEMENTATION

The implementation of ATSP 2016-2025 will continue to be supervised by the ASEAN national tourism organisations with the assistance of four newly restructured subsidiary committees: the ASEAN Tourism Competitiveness Committee; the ASEAN Sustainable and Inclusive Tourism Committee; the ASEAN Tourism Resourcing, Monitoring and Evaluation Committee; and the ASEAN Tourism Professional Monitoring Committee.

ASEAN has also stepped up the marketing of the cruise business. The ministers have adopted new branding: ‘Cruise Southeast Asia, feel the warmth’. ASEAN says: “This is inspired by the waves, highlights the vibrant diversity, culture and warmth of the people of Southeast Asia, as well as the close relationships between member states.”